Asked by
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to regulate
artificial intelligence and, if so, which uses they intend to
regulate.
(Con)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on
the Order Paper and declare my technology interests as set out in
the register.
The Minister of State, Department for Science, Innovation and
Technology ( of Balham) (Lab)
My Lords, as set out in the King's Speech, we will establish
legislation to ensure the safe development of AI models by
introducing targeted requirements on companies developing the
most powerful AI systems, and we will consult on the proposals in
due course. This will build on our ongoing commitment to make
sure that the UK's regulators have the expertise and resources to
effectively regulate AI in their respective domains.
(Con)
My Lords, with individuals having loan applications rejected off
the back of AI decisions and creatives having their works
ingested by GenAI with no consent or remuneration, would not the
Minister agree that we need economy-wide and society-wide AI
legislation and regulation for the benefit of citizens,
consumers, creatives, innovators and investors—for all our AI
futures?
of Balham (Lab)
Thank you. It is an important area, and one where we have huge
opportunities for growth. There is definitely the need for
regulators to become upskilled in the ability to look at AI and
understand how it impacts their areas. That is the reason we
created the Regulatory Innovation Office, announced last week, to
make sure that there are the capabilities and expertise in
sector-dependent regulators. We also believe that there is a need
for regulation for the most advanced models, which are general
purpose, and of course cross many different areas as well.
(Lab)
My Lords, notwithstanding the need for sector-specific approaches
and expertise, does my noble friend agree that public confidence
and constitutional legitimacy require primary legislation, and
sooner rather than later?
of Balham (Lab)
The reason we are establishing the prospect of an AI Act is to
look at those models that are the ones that are at the biggest
forefront in general use and carry with them specific
opportunities and risks that require that specific legislation.
It is not the case that that is true for every aspect of the
application of AI in every single area, much of which can be
covered by existing regulation and can be dealt with by
regulators, provided that they are appropriately reinforced with
the skills, capabilities and knowledge required.
(LD)
My Lords, if a photograph tells 1,000 words, an AI-generated
image can tell 1,000 lies. As a photographer, I am concerned
about altered or manipulated imagery in journalism and on social
media. Generative AI images used in journalism will soon be good
enough to blur our ability to discern truth from fiction. What
are the Government doing to support a move to a standard of
authenticity signatures on real images, so that all photographs
can be quickly verified as either real or AI-generated?
of Balham (Lab)
This again is a very important area in which there are rapid
technological advances. Watermarking to enable understanding of
what is original and what is not, and indeed what component of
originality is in any finished product, is an important
development that is not there yet but is on the way. In the
meantime, there are specific provisions in the Online Safety Bill
to make sure that the most egregious examples of this are
caught—and, indeed, are illegal.
(CB)
My Lords, this Government have pledged to recalibrate trade
relations with the EU. However, the new EU AI legislation is much
more prescriptive than the regulation proposed by the Government.
How will the Government ensure that UK-based AI organisations
with operations in the EU, or which deploy AI into the EU, will
be aligned with EU regulation?
of Balham (Lab)
As the noble Viscount points out, the EU regulation has gone in a
somewhat different direction in taking a very broad approach and
not a sector-specific approach. In contrast, the US looks as
though it is going down a similar sort of route to the one that
we are taking. Of course, there will be a need for
interoperability globally, because this is a global technology. I
think that there will be consultation and interactions with both
those domains as we consider the introduction of the AI Act, and
we are starting an extensive consultation process over the next
few months.
(Con)
My Lords, I am somewhat concerned by the Minister's reference to
regulating the most powerful and general purpose models, because
I fear that that is a pathway to closing down markets and
preventing access to challenger firms. But, in the context of
copyright, which is of concern to all content creators and
certainly to publishers, are the Government considering a
mandatory mechanism to ensure transparency, so that those
publishers that choose to opt out their data from the training
purposes are able to do so?
of Balham (Lab)
In passing, I will just reference the first part: even Eric
Schmidt, at the investment summit on Monday, made the point that
some sort of guard-rails and some sort of certainty for business
are required in order to grow those most important models. There
is a demand for something there and that is what we want to try
to get right. It is not right to leave nothing as these models
progress. I am sorry, I have completely forgotten the second
point.
(Con)
Transparency.
of Balham (Lab)
Yes—the question of intellectual property and transparency is
important. We are consulting widely on this with the creative
industries and with others. Indeed, in my own review, which I did
for the previous Government when I was in my post as the
Government Chief Scientific Adviser, I made the very clear point
that we need to distinguish between the inputs to these models
and what is required for intellectual property control there, and
the outputs of the model, which goes back to the question about
watermarking and understanding what component of the output is
derived from which part of the input.
(GP)
My Lords, one area of AI technology that has been used a lot
without regulation for many years, and has been exposed as having
some quite severe flaws, is that of facial recognition. It is
being used a lot by police forces all over Britain and clearly
has caused a lot of confusion and made a lot of mistakes. Will
that be one area that the Minister will be looking at,
specifically for regulation?
of Balham (Lab)
That is an area that of course comes under several other parts of
regulation already. It is also an area where there are massive
changes in the way that these models perform. If one looks at
GPT-4 versus GPT-3—I know it is not facial recognition, but it
gives an indication of the types of advances—it is about twice as
good now as it was a year ago. These things are moving fast and
there is indeed a need to understand exactly how facial
recognition technology is valid and where it has problems in
recognition.
(Con)
My Lords, the supply chain for the development of the more
advanced AI systems is, in almost every case, highly global in
nature. That means that it becomes quite straightforward for AI
developers to offshore their activities from any jurisdiction
whose regulations they might prefer not to follow. This being the
case, do the Government agree that the regulations for AI
development, as distinguished mostly from use, are going to have
to be global in nature? If the Government agree with that, how is
it reflected in their plans for AI regulation going forward?
of Balham (Lab)
The noble Viscount makes an important point. This will be global;
there is no question about it. Therefore, there needs to be some
degree of interoperability between different regions in terms of
the regulations put in place. At the moment, as I said, of the
two most advanced, the US is the biggest AI nation in the world
and is developing a regulation along similar lines to ours, we
believe. The EU is of course the most regulated place in the
world for AI and we need to work out, in consultation over the
next months, how to make sure that we work out where the areas of
interoperability will lie.
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster (Lab)
My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that any
advisory committees on regulation of AI should include smaller
companies involved in the sector and also representation from the
regions?
of Balham (Lab)
This is an area where there were something like 100 new start-ups
in the last year alone. We have something like 4,000 small
companies. It is an area where small companies are critically
important and must be involved in the discussion. It is worth
remembering that some of the enormous companies were small
companies not very long ago in this space; it is moving fast. I
will also take this opportunity to say how fantastic it is that,
in our own country, we had a Nobel prize awarded to Demis
Hassabis for his extraordinary work and that of his colleague
John Jumper at Google DeepMind.
(Con)
My Lords, I was delighted to hear the Minister's response to my
noble friend . I am so pleased that the
Government are taking advantage of this Brexit opportunity. Last
week, I got a new iPhone—for the first time in 10 years —and it
came with an Apple intelligence function that was not available
on the iPhones released on the same day in the EU. Will the
Minister confirm that we have no plans to follow Brussels in
imposing needless regulation that is hostile to growth and
innovation?
of Balham (Lab)
We are very minded of the opportunity of AI—the report by Matt
Clifford on AI opportunities will be coming out shortly. We want
to see this as a growth industry in this country and, as I said,
we are developing in the AI Bill an approach that is only about
those general models and is not sector-specific regulation,
thereby differing from the EU currently.
